Hatch Page 7

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “First, your street thug is not on any known Egyptian database.”

  Hatch nodded. “We figured as much.”

  “However,” Killian added, “we’ve ID’d the guy you just talked to and left at the restaurant,” Killian stated. “He has a son, two daughters, and a wife, and, yes, he’s well-known as somebody who maintains information on the place.”

  “And is that information for sale?”

  “Yes, absolutely. He’s well-known for buying and selling information. So, in other words, he has his fingers on the pulse of the city and uses it to his own advantage when the time comes.”

  “Exactly,” Corbin agreed. “So, what has this got to do with Marcus?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe the foreman’s wife was just looking for money to put food on the table,” Killian replied. “And maybe she was right, and the information guy uses pressure to make sure that the intel is flowing in his direction. Either way, she raced to him, so that’s suspicious in itself.”

  “Only suspicious in the sense that she already knew she could get paid for that info, but only if she got there first,” Corbin added. “We utilize the same techniques to get intel ourselves … all the time.”

  Hatch glared at his friend. “That’s not helpful.”

  He chuckled. “Duly noted, but, until we get an idea of where the foreman is, and if he’s coming back, we need to roust out some other people on that team.”

  “And you have some names to go by, right?” Killian asked.

  “Yes, with the help of some cash,” Hatch replied, “and Corbin just pulled the addresses. We’ll go make some visits.”

  “Just be a little quiet about it,” Killian said. “The Egyptian government has asked several times if we had plans.”

  “I’m sure,” Hatch murmured, “and, yeah, we do have plans. … We just don’t have any solutions yet.”

  “We’re getting there,” Killian replied. “We’ll talk soon, after you find out more from somebody.” With that, Killian disconnected.

  Hatch looked at Corbin, then bounced to his feet. “We missed dinner. Let’s grab some food and go roust any other employees who we can find.”

  And that’s what they did. Thirty minutes later, with their stomachs full, they approached the first address. As Hatch knocked on the door, he heard loud music inside. The door opened to reveal a young man. He stared at them, as Corbin asked for Hamum.

  “Just a minute.” Then he took off.

  When Hamum arrived, his smile immediately fell away. “Did you find him?” he asked.

  “Marcus? No.” Hatch immediately knew who Hamum was asking about. “We were hoping you might have some answers.”

  Immediately the other man shook his head. “No. I have no answers, but all of us want to go back to work.”

  “Of course,” Hatch agreed. “Do you have any idea if the project you were working on was considered valuable or rare or anything?”

  He stared at him. “Of course it’s valuable. All our work is.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Hatch replied, “I just wondered if anything in particular about this dig may have gotten Marcus kidnapped.”

  “He was kidnapped?” Hamum’s face paled suddenly. “I thought they just took off for some reason, and they would be back.” But it was obvious from his tone that he didn’t really think that at all.

  “Come on. You thought that they’d taken off and weren’t coming back, didn’t you?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, I did.”

  “No need for him to take off. You knew it then, and you know it still,” Hatch replied.

  “Except that the government was making all kinds of threats,” Hamum noted quietly.

  “Yes, but that’s the Egyptian government.” Corbin shrugged. “That’s what they do. Nobody listens.”

  “Nobody listens, until your family is threatened,” he reminded them.

  “What are you saying? Did the Egyptian powers that be target or threaten Millie to get Marcus to shut up?”

  “No, of course not.” Hamum shook his head. “He did love his daughter.”

  At his use of a past-tense verb, both Corbin and Hatch sent him hard looks. “What? Is he dead?”

  He stared at them in confusion. “I don’t know. How would I even know that?”

  “You just referred to him in the past tense, as if he were already gone.”

  He waved his hand. “If the government has him, he might as well be gone.”

  “So, is the Egyptian government something to be worried about or not?”

  “Not usually, no. Unless they’re on a rampage about something. Then they could make an example out of him.”

  “And what about another faction?” Hatch asked. “Do you know of anybody else who could have kidnapped him?”

  Hamum frowned, shaking his head. “No, of course not. We were just out there, working every day, but you know it allows for us to have the rest of our lives with our families, … to put food on the table for them.” Hamum stared at the two foreigners. “All we want is to keep working.”

  “Well, in this instance,” Hatch stated, “that’s not likely to happen. At least not for a while.”

  “So, what do I do? Should I get another job?” He shook his head. “If Marcus finds out that I have another job, I’ll be fired.”

  Hatch frowned at that. “What do you mean?”

  “Marcus wants us to stay and to work only for him,” he explained. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

  “Is there anything secretive about the work you do with Marcus?” Corbin asked.

  Hamum shook his head. “No, we move dirt, day in, day out. All we do is we move dirt. Sometimes it’s easier. Sometimes it’s harder, but that’s all we do.”

  “Is there anybody else you work with who would know more?”

  He stared back at them. “I don’t know. Why you ask these questions?” He clearly was nervous. “Should I be worried?”

  “No, I’m sure you don’t need to be worried,” Hatch answered in a soothing tone. “We’re just trying to find Marcus.”

  The man started to back away. “Please don’t …”

  “Is there any reason why you could be in danger?”

  “I’m not in danger,” he said, “but people will ask questions. And the more they see me talking to you, the worse that will get.” And, with that, he stepped inside and slammed the door.

  “Well, that’s not really a surprise though, is it?” Corbin looked at Hatch.

  “No, guess not.” He shook his head, as they turned and walked away. “So nobody knows anything?”

  “Isn’t that always the way?”

  “Not like this though. They’re all nervous, and they’re all worried.”

  “Well, if Marcus is in trouble with the Egyptian government, they’re probably worried that they could be in trouble by association.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Hatch agreed. “Yet somebody has to know something.”

  As they headed back toward their next address, two shadows loomed up in front of them. “You were told to leave town,” one of the men said threateningly.

  “Yeah, but we don’t take orders really well, especially not from thugs like you.” Hatch crossed his arms over his chest, studying the two men. They looked to be the same ones they had taken on in the alleyway. “Did you guys come back for another round?”

  “Very funny,” the one man replied in a sour tone.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault,” Hatch told him. “If you want to go another round, we can think about it. We just ate, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Burn some of that off and all.” He looked over at Corbin. “What about you? You ready to go another round?”

  Corbin laughed. “I’m always ready for a good scrap. I’m still not sure what they think they’re after though.”

  “We’re trying to give you fair warning,” the bigger man stated. “You seem to think that we’re kidding.”

  “No, I don’t think you’re
kidding at all,” Hatch stated. “Yet you don’t seem to understand that we need to get Millie and Marcus back. I mean, the Egyptian government can get involved, and we don’t really care, but it won’t change our position.”

  “It won’t change ours either,” the other man noted. “All the government can do is play its own games. This has got nothing to do with them.”

  “Well, that answered that.” Hatch had absolutely no doubt that this guy was telling the truth about that. He nodded at those words. “Glad to hear that. It’s one thing to deal with private issues. It’s another thing when the government gets involved. They just make things messy.”

  The one guy snorted. “If you think this won’t get messy, you don’t understand this scenario very well at all.”

  “Oh, I think we understand it all right.” Corbin smiled. “But I don’t think you guys understand how committed we are to getting the answers that we need.”

  “You might want to change that commitment,” he stated, “because we can’t have you out here asking any more questions.”

  “Why? Because you think we’re getting to the truth? Well, not so much. So far absolutely nobody is willing to offer any help. It’s as if everybody wants to believe Marcus and Millie just packed up and walked away, without taking anything with them.”

  “They did,” he agreed immediately.

  “No, they sure didn’t,” Corbin stated. “They left too much stuff behind. Now, if you guys had at least cleaned out the hotel suite, like, … really cleaned it out, so that nothing was left, it would make more sense. But Marcus and Millie didn’t have that much with them to begin with, and you even left behind some of their journals. That won’t go over well.”

  The man looked at him, and a muscle ticked away in the corner of his mouth.

  “See? Now that was something you guys didn’t think of. People like us, … people like Marcus and Millie, who spend their entire lifetime hunting in these places, they don’t leave their notes and their journals behind. I mean, they would literally leave their clothing and all their other possessions behind before they did that,” Hatch explained. “So we know for sure that they didn’t leave on their own, which means, we need to have access to them and that needs to happen now.”

  At that, one of the men stared at him and didn’t say a word. “Any other demands?” he asked.

  “You know what? We might even consider letting you guys keep Marcus, if we had some idea what the problem was,” Hatch offered, “but Millie is nonnegotiable.”

  The man stared off in the distance. “Well, I’ll pass on the message.” And, with that, the two men melted into the background.

  Corbin turned and looked at his partner. “Was that wise?”

  “Maybe not,” Hatch said, “but we need to do something to shake things up. Nobody is talking in this damn city, and chances are that the silence will get worse before it gets better. Nobody is willing to even speculate as to where Marcus and Millie are, but these guys? … These street thugs know. There’s a good chance that Millie has nothing to do with any of this. She’s probably being held as collateral to make sure that her father cooperates.”

  “So why would they let her go?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Hatch muttered. “Maybe her father isn’t being very cooperative anyway, and maybe she’s causing them more headaches. I don’t know, and maybe it was a terrible idea on my part, but somehow, in the moment, it somehow felt right.”

  “That’s all we have to go on sometimes,” Corbin noted. “Let’s hope your gut instinct was right on target here.”

  Chapter 5

  When she woke up again, Millie couldn’t even tell what time it was because they were in complete darkness. The door opened slowly, and a guard stood there. She rolled over and sat up, searching for her father. He was here, crumpled to her side. She reached a hand over to see if he was breathing, grateful to feel it coming out slow and steady. “Thank God,” she whispered.

  “I presume that means he’s alive,” said the guard.

  “Yes, he’s alive.”

  “Good thing,” he muttered. He motioned at her. “Bathroom break?”

  She got to her feet, the water bottle in her hand. As she stepped out, she handed him the bottle. “Please, may I have some more water?”

  He nodded. “Food is coming too.”

  She smiled, trying to appear pleased. “That’s good news.” She was operating on instinct at this point, and she wasn’t particularly hungry but more concerned about keeping them both alive. So whatever effort their captors went to, she would applaud. She took several deep breaths. “It’s all dark in here, so I can’t tell the time of day, and my eyes miss the brightness.” She shook her head. “Surely we can be held someplace where there is light.”

  He didn’t say anything and just gave her a rough push. “You’re wasting time.”

  She walked around to the corner and used the facilities, as she mockingly referred to them, but she’d certainly used worse than that in her years on digs. She walked back toward the guard again, knowing, if she made any attempt to run, he’d come after her or just shoot her where she stood.

  The fact of the matter was, out here, she had a much better chance of surviving with her kidnappers than without them. She stood in front of the guard. “May I just have a few minutes of fresh air?”

  He nodded at the end of this small hallway, where the sun shone. “You can stand at the rock and wait for a minute or two, but you can’t go farther than that rock.”

  She looked at the rock, nodded. “I’ll just sit on it.” She walked over, sat down, and filled her lungs with fresh air. To see the sunrise allowed her to feel some positivity in her life. More than that, she was also looking for landmarks, … trying to figure out exactly where they were.

  In the distance she heard some noises, but they were too indistinct to identify them or to tell her what she heard. She closed her eyes, tilted her head up toward the sky, and whispered, “Dear God! Let this be over soon.” When she heard a shout, she turned to see her guard standing nearby, calling to her.

  She was only a few feet away, but he’d moved toward her father. “Is he okay?” She bolted to her feet, running to his side.

  He stared down at her. “Was he alive before?”

  She nodded. “Yeah! You saw me. I felt his breath on my hand.”

  “Sure,” he noted, “but maybe there wasn’t one.”

  She bolted inside and dropped beside her father. When she placed her hand against his neck to check, she found no pulse. She stared down at him and gave him a hard shake. “Dad, Dad, wake up!”

  But there was no response.

  She looked over at her guard. “Was somebody in here?” she cried out.

  He shook his head. “No, it was just … you and me.”

  That meant, while she had been outside enjoying the morning sunshine and fresh air, her father had been losing his life in this dark hole. The tears rolled down her face, and she dropped her head to his chest. Dear God, Dad. What the hell is going on?

  There wasn’t anything that she could do or say. There was no way to bring him back. She stared down at his features, her hand gently stroking his puffy bruised face. “You guys killed him. You know that, right?” she murmured.

  “He died when nobody was here.”

  “It was the beating you gave him,” she snapped. “He was unconscious yesterday, and now his body finally gave up the ghost.” She shook her head. “He’s an old man. You didn’t have to beat him so badly.”

  At that, the guard muttered something, slammed the door in her face, and left her here beside her dead father. She closed her eyes and just held her father’s hand. “Why couldn’t you have told me the truth?” she whispered. “Why did you have to die now, with so many unanswered questions?”

  To find out about all this deception just before he died was almost torture because she couldn’t ask him about anything. Now she could never get the truth from him. She didn’t know if and when he had been inv
olved in anything. It was just pain on top of pain, and now even that was overwhelmed with the crushing grief. She closed her eyes and sobbed gently. When the door suddenly opened, she looked up and glared at the same guard, as he walked in and dropped breakfast on the ground beside her.

  “What will you do with him?” she whispered, grief hitting her in waves.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s up to the boss.” He turned and walked back out again.

  She didn’t want to eat. She didn’t want to do anything but sit here and stare at her father, knowing that this was a pain that wouldn’t heal quickly. Losing her father would have been terrible under any circumstances, but here and like this and with all these questions hanging over her head? It was all just too much.

  If she didn’t eat though, it would possibly impact her access to food in the future; plus, she knew she needed to keep her strength up. With no idea what was coming, she simply couldn’t afford to let herself get weak. She needed to be as strong as possible for whatever happened next.

  She just didn’t know what the hell that would be. She reached for the food, and, with her dead father lying beside her, forced herself to slowly work through the process of chewing. Shaking with grief and heartache, she tried to calm herself and to focus on what she needed to do. When the door opened again about an hour later, two men walked in.

  They motioned for her to get back, then picked up her father and walked out. Neither of them spoke a single word.

  “What are you doing with him?” Millie ran behind them.

  “It’s too late to do anything for him,” said the boss, standing to the side in the hallway, wearing that panama hat.

  She turned to face him. “That’s still doesn’t answer my question.”

  “He’ll get buried.”

  “And I won’t know where or when?”

  “No, you won’t,” he stated. “Say your goodbyes now, and be done with it quickly.”

  She shook her head. “No, no.” Tears streamed down her face, as she watched the men carry her father away. “I beg you. Don’t do this,” While she was crying out, her father’s body was loaded onto a cart and hooked up to a motorized bike. “Is this really the way to treat the dead?”